[lbo-talk] [DEBATE] : (Fwd) Doug Henwood on elite climate change strategy

Gar Lipow the.typo.boy at gmail.com
Mon Apr 23 14:06:52 PDT 2007


On 4/23/07, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> I'd love a progressive carbon tax in principle, though, aside from
> something like a residential electricity bill, I can't think of how
> to structure it. Should an aluminum plant pay a proportionally higher
> tax than an ad agency, just because the production of aluminum is
> very energy-intensive, and the production of seductive bullshit isn't?

There is a very simple way to make a carbon tax progressive - in effect that is. Steal the idea behind the sky trust. Take, revenues from the carbon tax and divide them equally among the population. The result is sort of flatly progressive. The very poor receive significantly more than they pay; most of the working and middle classes get back about what they pay (some castes a bit more, some castes a bit less). The rich pay a lot more than they get back, though not in proportion to their income. So very slightly progressive, but better than extremely regressive. And in terms of winning a popular support, a whole lot better than any other type of carbon tax. You might even refer to it as a "No Hair Shirt" carbon tax.



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